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I Just Found my old Record player and my Tube Riaa stage. I adjusted my Ortofon Super om20 Pick-up and set the thirst record on the Plate. "Tom Waits - Nighthawks At The Diner" And at wants I was in Heaven. Why did We all say no to Sound quality, and Yes to easy and comfortable Mp3 CD's sounds like Crap what the hell happen to the real sound stage. Sorry I have Stereo for about 100.000$ and it's only when I connect my Record Player I Really can here the Quality of the whole thing. Why are we going Backwoods ??? It's Stupid !!! Pics of my Stereo follows :smile:

Gold Member

I still have my old vinyl records from when I was a teenager. There is a unique sound that comes from playing vinyl over a CD. I was watching on the news the other day that vinyl is making a huge comeback. Apparently some new music was released on vinyl as well as CD recently and the vinyl sold out immediately. The only problem is that there aren't many facilities operating that can produce vinyl anymore. One that they spotlighted on the news segment said that they can't keep up with the demand. It's pretty sweet when you have almost no competition and your product is in demand again. That is great news - especially in tough economic times like these.

Always like to talk about audio and music........
Curious to know what type of tube{s} your tekni-fi preamp/riaa curve is using...A 6DJ8 tube maybe?
I very much am into Vacuum tube amplifier technologies.....i too am an electronics/engineering guy.

Just loads of em' really.....these one's i picked out represent extroadinary care in the recording and mastering processe's.......They are recordings that were made in the finest studios in the world and completely done in analog. They can cause spontaneous EARGASM's.
That's all for now.....:wink:

Gold Member

To answer the question... Vinyl sounds better because it contains vastly more information than any ordinary CD or MP3.

Vinyl is an actual GROOVE cut into the surface that is an accurate drawing of the soundwave from a performance.

The better the vinyl, the better the master, the more perfect a picture it is. And the cool thing about vinyl is that the better the equipment you play it on, the more perfect the reproductions.

Vinyl is capable of captureing Ultrawideband signals... far above AND below human hearing...and GOOD ultrawide band audio equipment can reproduce sound you can't even hear, but that has a harmonic and shaping effect on the sounds you CAN hear.

That may seem like a lot... but what it means is that CDs can BARELY reproduce a pure tone at the upper end of human hearing...
They CAN NOT reproduce the nuance of timbre in high frequency sound played on, say, a violin or a sax.
Moreove... at the natuiral harmonics of the 44khz samply rate,all thru the sound range, CDs suffer from "aliasing"-- meaning that the sampling matches several different frequencies and can be MIS-Interpreted as the wrong frequency when being converted back into an analog signal..

Add to this the fact that CDs represent AMPLITUDE as digital samples as well, and that, for example, on a cd, Sound only comes in 256 different levels of loudness. Literally... no such thing on a CD as a sound that is 142.2... it is EITHER 142 OR 143 "units" loud.

These two limitations means that Digital sound has extremely Limited DYNAMIC RANGE... That is... CD's can not accurately represent BOTH a very soft sound, and a very loud sound in the same CD.... So recording studios are forced to "equalize" the volume levels... making ALL CDs sound uniformly the same loudness and all tracks on all songs sound uniformly the same.

You can not have a soft instrumental accompaniment in the background, as there will not be enough Amplitude units to accurately encode the waveform... you you have to boost the accompaniment... and thereby ruin the vocal.

I was a heavy duty audiophile when the Digital revolution was breaking and we could barely wait to hear the wonder of CD sound...

All the audiophiles I knew were disappointed with the sound of CD's from the start...

DAT digital audio tape was about a year behind in development... and the companies working on DAT heard the complaints of the audiophiles and decided they would Delay release of DAT players and DOUBLE their sampling rate to 88,000 hz.
That would have solved many of Digital audio's shortcomings... and so I waited... refusing to buy into CD technology waiting for the better audio standard of DAT.

But it never happened. Several japanese comapnies sued the DAT guys, and after a years long fight... won a suit in Japanese court that made it a LAW that no company could manufacture digtial miusic equipment with a higher sampling rate than CDs for at least 10 years.

( this was because CD technology had been bankrolled by Japanese govenrment investment... and 88khz DAT would have KILLED cds. )

So we were all just stuck with the piss poor audio quality of CD.

And by the time SACD came out, which has a much higher sampling rate and sounds ALMOST as good as vinyl, it was really too late to catch on.

It has become really hard to even find decent audio equipment anymore, as CDs sounded like such shit that power equipment and speaker technology kinds of drifted into mediocrity.

But my vinyl equipment still rocks- An Ariston Audio RD11s turntable- with Sure SME arm and Grado Signature pickup. I am on my 3rd set of antique Harmon Kardon discrete amps... and the unparalleled Ohm C2s- the best bookshelf speakers ( huge by today's standards) ever made. They have been re-coned 4 times over the 30 years I have had them.
Still so popular that Ohm offers re-conditioning services for them.

But That is why vinyl sounds better... Vast dynamic range and a REAL picture of the WHOLE waveform... not just samples here and there.

For best listening... try and find Half Speed Mastered Virgin Vinyl like those produce by Mobile Fidelity Audio Labs.
The play the original master tapes at half speed and cut the master lacquer at half speed to get the most accurate groove they can.

Gold Member

I totally gree with Pym, You cannot beat the sound produced from am old Valve (Vacuum Tube) amplifier. Valves being a thermeonic device produce a far more round richer sound compared to a Semiconductor one. A semiconductor is either on or it is off, were as valves being thermionic taper off. so nowhere near as harsh as a semiconductor one. In my days as an electronic apprentice studying my City & Guids qualifications You swooned over and am that had a couple of KT 66's in puch-pull out put. Huge things they were, more like a light bulb and nearly gave off as much light. The the lastest think to appear was transistor amplifiers containing a matched pair of 2N3055 output transistors, again in push pull out put. For the best sounding base you needed mains energized speakers, which were found mainly in cinemas, you felt it rather than heard it.

People always go for the amps with the highest power output, but what they don't realise is that you do not get the best sound quality, out of a push-pull out put amp until you are running it at 3/4 of its total out put. So lower output amps are what you need for quality sound. Having said that any system be It Bose, Bang & Olefson, Quad, Leek etc, is only as good as your own personal hearing. That is where the true sound is made.

Been trying to find an on-line picture of the speaker without much luck Have a picture of one in a book, will scan it later and upload it.

I also remember buying my first electronic organ, it was a Yamaha. It was unique for the fact that it had a 32 inch flat speaker shaped like the sound board of a grand piano, made from polystyrene foam upto 2 inches thick in places. It had a frequency range of 32 Hz upto 22 Khz. One of the sales lines was you could drive a pencil through any part of the surface and it would not effect its sound quallity. Was an amazing thing. Dn't know if they still produce it anymore. Before anyone asks no they were not electrostatics like the old Quad, radiator looking, speakers It was a moveing coil one.

Gold Member

For best listening... try and find Half Speed Mastered Virgin Vinyl like those produce by Mobile Fidelity Audio Labs.
The play the original master tapes at half speed and cut the master lacquer at half speed to get the most accurate groove they can.

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Fuckin' A Phil... I wish that I had you around to explain all of that gibberish on the inside of those discs! lol!!! MFSL makes some of the best CDs that I have ever heard... my Jean Michele Jarre Oxygene MFSL gold CD has an absolutely unreal sound. My Dad got me hooked on JMJ from his vinyl collection so I have a pretty good feel for the vinyl sound versus the CD sound. I had no idea that MFSL even made records!

But my vinyl equipment still rocks- An Ariston Audio RD11s turntable- with Sure SME arm and Grado Signature pickup. I am on my 3rd set of antique Harmon Kardon discrete amps... and the unparalleled Ohm C2s- the best bookshelf speakers ( huge by today's standards) ever made. They have been re-coned 4 times over the 30 years I have had them. Still so popular, that Ohm offers re-conditioning services for them.

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Man, I looked up those speakers here they look intense and expensive. In fact, your whole set-up costs a fucking arm and a leg, but I can only imagine how awesome it sounds!

But That is why vinyl sounds better... Vast dynamic range and a REAL picture of the WHOLE waveform... not just samples here and there.

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Hmmm... I am not sure how much of the dynamic range difference an average person can make out. The average person can only really hear a tonal difference from 40hz-16khz with the CD sample rate of 20hz-20khz being the upper range of all human hearing. I suspect that people are enjoying the increased dynamic range of SACDs more than the higher bandwith though. The 24 bits allow for that soft background music to play in the background and not be lost... there is much less quantization as well, which results in even more perceivable dynamics.

The increased sample rate of SACDs mean that you get less aliasing in the audible range than in the lower sample rates. Lower sample rates have distortion that results in a smearing of the sound that is in the audible range. Higher sample rates move the distortion into the frequency bands that are out of the range of human hearing. The newer consumer 96khz anti-aliasing filters are superb as compared to a lot of the older consumer 44.1 and 48 khz filters.

So, the increased bandwith does not allow us to actually hear more frequencies, but it does reduce the distortion that the stop band rejection causes in the audible range.

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But the most important reasons why records sound better are the following:

Vinyl mastering employs a strategy to the low end that digital mastering does not employ.

Excess out of phase low frequency information can make a groove that is difficult to track on most record players. To prevent this, the use of an elliptical equalizer, which uses an adjustable frequency, below which all frequencies (the bass material) are summed together into mono is employed. Or, when the signal is split into its mono and stereo components, a limiter is used on the stereo portion to reduce movement in the out-of-phase portion of the signal.

Both of these strategies result in a tight ass bass signal that can be amplified to staggering levels without blowing components and or speakers. One can really crank the bass knob when equalizing an LP and that is why records are still played in dance clubs, they have more potential low end power.

Excess high amplitude high frequency material must also be kept to a minimum because it can cause the needle to just bump up over the grooves, which is perceived as distortion by the listener. The solution was more frequency dependent limiting which results in a smooth high end that again, can be cranked up in the listening environment. LP recordings can be listened to at higher volumes because the high frequencies are limited and the listener's ear does not reach the threshold of pain as quickly as it would with a CD played at the same volume.

Mastering for vinyl requires some additional steps that result in music that is much more pleasing to the ear than music that has been mastered for digital playback.

Oh yeah... and since records are made from an organic medium, the sound is actually stored in the vinyl and not converted to a binary signal that must be decoded before our analog ears can perceive the sound. This requires DA converters that can differ greatly in the amount of sonic integrity that they offer. Not all Digital to Audio converters sound good and some sound absolutely fantastic. Fantastic Digital to Audio converters are not found in the assemblies of probably 85% of consumer electronic products.

Vinyl also allows the mastering engineer to hit the VU meters a little harder than in digital mastering, resulting in a slight distortion that makes the mix sound sweet and alive. The distortion adds extra harmonic content to the mix in the form of even order harmonics. Even order harmonics sound pleasing and sweet to the ear and odd order harmonics sound metallic and ringy to the ears. The anti-aliasing filters add odd order harmonics to the signal of a digital mix which is why lower sample rates sound metallic and dirty and higher sample rates sound sweet and clean.

Several japanese comapnies sued the DAT guys, and after a years long fight... won a suit in Japanese court that made it a LAW that no company could manufacture digtial miusic equipment with a higher sampling rate than CDs for at least 10 years.

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My bold.

What law and which DAT 'guys'?

DAT was developed by Sony. To my knowledge there was no such law - in which country(ies)? Please cite the case(s) and resultant legislation.

The DAT standard allows sampling of up to 48Khz/16bit although some manufacturers 'extended' this to 96Khz/24bit - consumer equipment tended to max out at 48Khz/16bit. Even the 'double' rate of 88Khz was only at the standard 16bit depth so offered no extended range.

To my knowledge very few manufacturers ever made 88Khz equipment; only Tascam and Pioneer that I know of. In real terms all DAT did was allow perfect copies of audio CDs - it never really had the potential to improve significantly on standard (red book) CD audio - so the audiophile argument is largely moot. But the equipment existed and was not illegal.

Its manufacture has never been illegal anywhere that I'm aware of. There was a certainly a great deal of opposition to its introduction. This was especially the case in the US back in the late 1980s because the RIAA were so opposed to it, for the usual reason - greed.

But DAT equipment itself was never illegal per se, simply expensive and difficult to obtain. There was never any legislation preventing its manufacture and/or use or sale, merely a latent threat of litigation by the RIAA for assumed copyright infringment resulting from its use.

That mandate did require that consumer devices contained SCMS in an attempt to impede the replication of high quality digital recordings between people and (for example) to CD although this requirement did not apply to professional equipment, nor to devices used expressly for non musical recordings, nor the non commerical copying of existing digital recordings.

To suggest the mere manufacture of such devices (that could sample above 44khz) was illegal is a complete nonsense. Such equipment could be purchased quite easily and legally in Europe and Japan from the mid 1980s. At that time it was common for Americans to cross into Canada to purchase DAT equipment, again entirely legally.

The illegality of such equipment was a common misconception held by many in the US - yourself included, evidently. If I recall, Dolly Parton (and others) went to Washington to lobby for legislation to outlaw DAT equipment unless it contained anti copying chips.

The manufacturers of the equipment (such as Sony - Japanese) were opposed to these chips precisely because they believed they would impair their audio performance. They even came to the US to argue this, successfuly as I recall.

DAT recordings were put on sale in the US although the catalogue was minimal. That hardly sits with assertion that even manufacturing the kit to play them was against a LAW, does it? For heavens sake, the '88 Ford Lincoln offered a DAT player!

To answer the question... Vinyl sounds better because it contains vastly more information than any ordinary CD or MP3.

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Rubbish, well sort of.

Vinyl can only hold (at most) as much information as the device that imparts is it capable of, only not really.

I only have a tenuous grasp on the theorem myself, (not really my field) but from what you are saying, your assertion appears based on a flawed interpretation of the Nyquest-Shannon sampling theorem - coupled with an unwillingness to acknowledge that the amount of data capable of being encoded into a vinyl groove is in fact also limited.

Vinyl is capable of captureing Ultrawideband signals... far above AND below human hearing...and GOOD ultrawide band audio equipment can reproduce sound you can't even hear, but that has a harmonic and shaping effect on the sounds you CAN hear.

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Vinyl doesn't 'capture' anything, it's a passive medium.

You should do some research before coming here with this. The dynamic range of vinyl is perhaps 20-25 db below that of an audio CD. As for the shaping stuff; what you are referring to is harmonic distortion, it's not beneficial in a technical sense because it's ... distortion - but I agree, it can make the output sound nicer. Odd that, isn't it?

That said, I entirely agree that Vinyl has some perceived audio advantanges over CD in an auditory sense, although obviously it has a great many practical disadvantages. In reality however, those 'advantages' are imagined or at best, highly subjective. It doesn't sound 'better' so much as it sounds 'different'.

For some that's enough, I know for me it often is, I love the sound of vinyl but I don't delude myself into thinking it's better in any other way than subjectively. I suppose in a musical sense that's all that matters, but then one man's warmth is another's muddy base.

Forget SACD - it's a shame DVD Audio didn't catch on more - with a sample rate of up to 192khz it had great potential, but I wonder if the ship has sailed on physical media.